The Forgetting

There are things in our lives that we need to remember and cannot, and there are things in our lives that we want to forget and no matter how hard we try to snuff the memory out....it just wont go away. Let me explain...
The first class of the semester is my least favorite. This is the class that I call "The Beast"... College Algebra. Last semester I had taken this class and under the advice of my teacher, I dropped it before I failed it. It is very difficult for me to understand and more difficult to remember all the terms and formulas and what goes where and why. I know my abc's and I can count as high as anyone, but mix the numbers and letters together and my brain blows a circuit. When my teacher helps me, she will say, "Now, you try the next problem." I honestly have no idea what she just said, because I can't remember. I believe this is when the circuit blows. Believe me, it isn't the teacher's fault, it's the student's. Short term memory is not one of my strong suits. Come to think of it, neither is long term memory.
The first day of the semester, I was nervous about starting the class once again. I walked to the building from the parking lot. As I stepped up onto the curb, my right foot didn't make it. Before I knew it, papers, books, pencils, a very expensive graphing calculator, and my purse went flying through the air. My body wasn't as graceful as the objects that flew out before me and I landed with great force that most likely rattled the windows of the mathmatics building. Slowly, I tried to gather my senses and stand. My right knee and hip were both hurting, and my right palm was bleeding. A janitor was standing several feet from me and asked if I was alright. I said,"I don't know." But this didn't give him any ambition to come to my aid. Poor man, he probably didn't know where to get a crane to help me up. As I was standing up and trying to bend over to pick up all of the contents I had strewn on the sidewalk, a young man bent down to help me. When I went to thank him, he looked up and I was jolted at his appearance. He looked as if he had walked into a pin cusion. I don't know how many rings, bolts er um, staples the boy had in his face. I'm sure he would have had trouble holding a drink of water in his cheeks. But he was gracious to help me, and I was so appreciative.
As I walked into the classroom, a friend of mine from last semester's class (who had dropped also) said, "Well, it's about time! Where have you been!"
I felt the eyes of every student looking at me. I said, "I just landed like a 747 in the parking lot." Laughter and stiffled chuckles spread across the room. Surely some of these students had wittnessed my landing.
I'm sure I won't ever forget the details of this semester's first day of class, but ask me what the algebra lesson was about ...and I couldn't tell ya!

First Class has no "Chub Chair"

So, two years ago, I got a bright idea. (Not that the idea hadn't already popped in and out of my head for the last 20 years or so) I decided to go back to college. Our only child, a son, was in high school, my husband was working each week day, and the bright idea went from whispering, to tapping on my shoulder, to smacking me in the head. My husband with all of his diplomacy said,"Anyone with any sense, knows you need to be in school." That was my call, I guess one could say. I knew he was right.



The first day I went to school, youth swarmed the campus like bees in a hive. Overwhelmed, I went to my first class. When I walked in the door, my "Alice in Wonderland" nightmare came true. You know when, Alice grows and grows...and until she is so big she pops out of a house? There were about 25 desks facing me as I slowly walked through the door. As I looked around the room, I honestly thought I saw the "Sweat Hogs" hanging out at the back of the room...It was either them or one of the gangs from "West Side Story".The desks were toddler size. My backside was not. My head told me to just sit down...my rear end pleaded with me not to...I sided with my head and sat down. One cheek slid in and the other left hanging like a boulder about to topple down a mountain. While sitting lopsided in the desk, I was desperately thinking of some way I could escape. Looking at my schedule I held in my hand, I said,"Oh. I'm in the wrong class," which was a lie. I slid my right cheek out of the desk and never looked back. "I don't belong here," is all I could think.

With shoulders slumped and my head down, I walked through the parking lot to my car. Someone yelled at me from nearby building. It was a friend of mine, one who had already done a lot of encouraging. She waved and called my name. She was 40 at the time and getting her nursing degree. Somehow, this gave me some strength that I needed. A smile from a friend will do that for you.

I dropped the course with the teeny tiny desks and moved on with my first semester. Soon, I learned to go to class early the first few days of each semester, and sit at a table and chair that would be somewhere in each class. Fondly, I now call this the beloved "Chub Chair". The first year, it was nerve racking to walk into a class and search for the Chub Chair. "What if I couldn't get to it before another "chub" got it." "What if I go in and this class doesn't have one!" What if, what if, what if... What if's have held me back from so many things that might have been great. Learning to cope is a valuable tool in the chest or rather backpack.